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Thousand Wounds Gear Style
This strange Celestial martial art is one of the most widespread in Autochthonia. It is unusual when compared to Creation’s fighting styles in that it revolves around the mastery of an advanced magitech weapon, the gyroscopic chakram, and responds poorly to attempts to practice it with less complex tools.Formulated over 3,000 years ago, Thousand Wounds Gear style explores the calculating certainty of law and artfully expresses the terrible agony that awaits transgressors. It is renowned for the horrific damage it inflicts, and its practitioners’ aptitude for rendering targets helpless before calmly slicing them to pieces. In riot situations, the art is deployed as a tool of shock and awe. In the Reaches, it serves to cripple powerful gremlins as a prelude to their termination. Weapons and Armor: Attacks made with gyroscopic chakrams (see Chapter Six of MoEP: The Alchemicals) are treated as unarmed for the purposes of this style’s Charms, regardless of whether they are made at close or long range. Standard chakrams and wind-fire wheels may be substituted as alternative form weapons, but forcing the style to harmonize with these primitive tools imposes a one-mote surcharge on all of its Charms. Thousand Wounds Gear Style is fully compatible with armor. The Circle Screams Cost: 1m; Mins: Martial Arts 2, Essence 2; Type: Supplemental Keywords: Combo-OK Duration: Instant Prerequisite Charms: None The martial artist goes from chambered stillness to blinding action in a heartbeat, unleashing a straight-arm attack with such speed that the air whistles like escaping steam in its wake. This Charm supplements an unarmed martial arts attack, adding either (Essence ÷ 2) Accuracy or (Essence) raw damage to the strike at the martial artist’s discretion. Gear Catches Gear Defense Cost: 3m; Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 2; Type: Reflexive (Step 2) Keywords: Combo-OK Duration: Instant Prerequisite Charms: The Circle Screams The Exalt moves with mechanical precision, interposing either a rigid grip or the saw-toothed edge of his weapon to catch an incoming strike. The martial artist’s parry DV increases by two against an incoming attack, and if it succeeds in stopping the strike entirely, that attack’s Speed retroactively increases by one (forcing the attacker’s DV to refresh one tick later). If used barehanded, this Charm also allows the character to parry lethal and ranged attacks without a stunt. Thousand Wounds Gear Form Cost: 5m; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2; Type: Simple Keywords: Form-type, Obvious Duration: One scene Prerequisite Charms: Gear Catches Gear Defense The martial artist assumes a posture of cold precision and industrial menace. Her every motion is carefully marshaled, wasting not even the slightest muscle twitch. All of her strength goes into her offense and defense, and nowhere else. The martial artist may treat her gyroscopic chakram as a target shield with no mobility penalty or fatigue value. Her barehanded strikes inflict lethal damage. Additionally, all of her unarmed attacks ignore Hardness. Rearing Crane Release Cost: 3m; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 2; Type: Reflexive (Step 1) Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious Duration: One action Prerequisite Charms: Thousand Wounds Gear Form This Charm supplements the act of releasing an opponent from a clinch. The martial artist pivots out of the clinch, throwing his opponent over his shoulder on a high-angle trajectory. The target is hurled to any point in midair up to twice the usual throw distance, where she hangs suspended in defiance of gravity. She cannot move from that spot until the Charm ends unless she possesses a form of self-propelled aerial locomotion. She falls normally at the end of the duration unless another effect keeps her in the air. Floating Target Lock The Alchemical banks her attacks, striking broadly to impart force as well as damage. This Charm supplements an unarmed attack against an opponent who is in midair. If it successfully strikes the target, the target remains suspended until the martial artist’s next action as per the effects of Rearing Crane Release. If the target is an Essence user, he may cancel this effect and fall normally by reflexively spending five motes. Regardless of whether he pays this cost, he alsosuffers a -1 DV penalty until his next action. Flesh-Rending Gear Technique Cost: 4m, 1wp; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3; Type: Supplemental Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious Duration: Instant Prerequisite Charms: Thousand Wounds Gear Form The martial artist delivers her blows with remorseless precision. Great bladed gears erupt from her anima to momentarily solidify around an unarmed attack, radically boosting the trauma it inflicts on its unfortunate target. An unarmed attack enhanced by this Charm counts the martial artist’s Strength twice for the purpose of calculating raw damage. Additionally, its minimum damage increases by one die. This Charm may not enhance natural unarmed attacks that inflict bashing damage. Linear Flight Principle Cost: 4m; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3; Type: Supplemental Keywords: Combo-OK, Knockback, Obvious Duration: Instant Prerequisite Charms: Floating Target Lock, Flesh-Rending Gear Technique An understanding of the methods by which force may be gathered and directed to one purpose informs this technique. The Exalt’s anima streaks out from her arm in a jagged pulse, almost faster than the eye can see. The Charm enhances an unarmed attack. If it hits, the victim is hurled back a number of yards equal to (the martial artist’s Strength x 5) and suffers automatic knockdown upon landing, with results identical to those detailed in Heaven Thunder Hammer (see Exalted, pp. 242–243) if an obstacle stops him prematurely. Arc Blinding Assault Cost: 4m, 1wp; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 2; Type: Reflexive (Step 9) Keywords: Combo-OK, Counterattack, Crippling, Obvious Duration: Instant Prerequisite Charms: Thousand Wounds Gear Form One of the most common mishaps in the industrial world of the Alchemical Exalted is accidental blinding by exposure to unbearably bright arcs of energy. The martial artist learns to mimic this tragedy in a more direct fashion, throwing a shower of white-hot sparks as a counterattack in response to any attack she defended against with an unarmed parry using a close combat weapon that does not inflict bashing damage. She may choose any target for the sparks within (Essence) yards and need not choose the attacker who prompted the Charm, resolving her counter- attack using the normal traits for the weapon with which she parried. If her counterattack would inflict any damage, her victim is instead blinded (as per Exalted, p. 152). The blistered eyes of the Exalted repair themselves after a full day, but mortal eyes boil away completely to leave behind smoking sockets. Hungry Gear-Tooth Attack Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3; Type: Simple Keywords: Combo-OK, Crippling, Obvious Duration: Instant Prerequisite Charms: Arc Blinding Assault The frailty of human flesh is nothing set against the hungry teeth of the machine. The martial artist makes an unarmed attack using a weapon that doesn’t inflict bashing damage. If the attack inflicts any levels of damage, it inflicts only one level but also imposes a Crippling wound. If the martial artist is attacking barehanded, this Crippling effect takes the form of shattered bones, disabling a limb. If using a gyroscopic chakram at close or long range, the effect takes the form of an amputated limb of the martial artist’s choosing (see Exalted, p. 152, for sample amputation effects). Exalted victims heal disabled limbs when they heal the level of dam- age associated with them, while amputation requires more powerful treatment as normal. Thousand Wounds Persistence Cost: 5m; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3; Type: Supplemental Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious Duration: Indefinite Prerequisite Charms: Linear Flight Principle, Hungry Gear-Tooth Attack The martial artist aligns his Essence, his will, his weapon and his target before striking. This Charm supplements a ranged attack with a gyroscopic chakram. As long as the Exalt commits Essence to this Charm and does not voluntarily recall his weapon, the chakram continues to attack its target until the target is dead or the weapon has botched rather than following the usual re-attack rules (see Chapter Six). Thousand Wounds Disassembly Cost: 7m, 1wp; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4; Type: Extra Action Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious Duration: Instant Prerequisite Charms: Thousand Wounds Persistence The martial artist’s anima momentarily darkens, then compresses into a series of swirling arcs that trace the forthcoming path and intent of her attacks. A heartbeat later, her weapon follows. Targets rarely have time to scream. The martial artist makes one unarmed attack with her full dice pool as the first attack of a flurry. If the attack hits, two attacks follow. Those attacks automatically hit for the same number of successes as unblockable and undodgeable attacks.